What’s that...? You thought Led Zeppelin’s appeal was to do with Robert Plant’s soaring vocals and bodacious hair? Well. You clearly haven’t listened to their lyrics backwards. Come with us—if you dare—into the Haunted House of Rock Music [cue thunder crashes and villain laughter]. We’re piling into Marty McFly’s DeLorean time machine and traveling back to 1989 to watch Hell’s Bells: The Dangers of Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s what’s playing in the background at a Halloween party thrown by the Satanic Panic, a new moral majority, parental advisory labels on “porn rock,” and general fears about teenagers enjoying themselves. Mike gets groovy with a Sandi Patty deep cut and a Grateful Dead jam session, while Merinda stands by the punch bowl muttering surly critiques about failures in textual analysis. What do our fears (and the ways we try to manage them) say about us? What do code-cracking and spreading conspiracy theories have in common? And what makes metaphors a trick for some and a treat for others? We have lotsa thoughts and zero jump scares. Listen and lurch!

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.